Stanford Humanities Institute
One of the best experiences by far!
SHI is a 3 week program that offers four different courses: literature, philosophy, race, and history. Students apply to ONE of these courses and get instructed by a Stanford professor and their TAs. It was a great experience. My first choice was the Greeks and Beyond course, and I got in. Students learn college course material (the same ones Stanford students are taught) and receive a letter of recommendation by their professor after the program!
I loved the socializing aspect along with the academic rigor. Since I landed at the San Francisco Airport, the faculty and staff greeted me openly. Everyone there was friendly and exerted such kind and positive energy. I took the bus from the SFO Airport to Stanford campus, and my bus partner was the first person I had talked to; it was such a coincidence because he would be in my class!
When I got to campus on Sunday (a day before the program officially started) I made it just in time before orientation. Since the first day, I was able to meet people around the world. From China to Brazil to Tokyo, there were a variety of campers—very diverse!
My first thought was that the Stanford campus is absolutely beautiful! We stayed at Ng dormitory, a co-ed building that was right next to the outdoor basketball courts, volleyball nets, and soccer field. Every day after our classes we played volleyball or soccer. While I personally struggle a lot with those sports, it was still super fun.
During the weekdays, our classes typically started at 8:30ish am. We had about 1-2 hours of lecture from our Professor, then we moved onto a Q&A session, where we were each called on to ask a question. I was super scared of this part at first, but because the Professor’s answers are very lengthy and calls on you based on a roster that goes in alphabetical order, I only asked about 4 questions throughout my entire SSHI program. After our lecture, we had lunch at Stern dining hall. Depending on the day, the food could be really good. My personal favorite was the alfredo pasta.
When we finished with our meal, we spent the afternoon in a TA-led discussion. These TA’s are Stanford graduates who have been working at Stanford with our professor for 5+ years. My TA was so amazing and kind; she just got her PhD and is going to be a professor at a university in the fall!
Our professor is the epitome of what I believe a philosopher looks like. His mind was filled with so much knowledge that he could talk for hours—literally. If you search up his name, there’s a whole Wikipedia page about him. He tried all different kinds of sleeping schedules (for ex: sleeping at 10 am and waking up at 6 pm). When we had our individual office hours, he was intimidating, but very kind. Fun fact, he has two genetically cloned dogs.
Overall, we read about 6 philosophy books by Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Nietzsche, Sextus, and Parfit. While ⅔ of the course was spent on ancient philosophers, the rest was spent on more modern-day philosophy (which is why we read Parfit’s books). My favorite was Plato’s Symposium—his whole spiel about love is beautiful! Yet, the reading load could be a daunting task depending on the day. One night, we were assigned 100 pages of The Republic! Not only was it long, it was pretty difficult to understand. I stood up till 1 am with my classmates trying to discuss it.
During the last week of our program, we work on our independent research papers. This task varies from course to course, but in our course, it was an analysis of Parfit’s argument of personal identity. Other courses had the entire week off to work on their independent projects, but only our course kept attending lectures. Arguably, the Greeks and Beyond was one of the toughest courses.
Socially, we had a lot of variety to do on the weekends. First week, I went to Downtown Palo Alto; second week, I went to the Farmer's Market; and third week, I went to the Stanford mall. I made so many new friends, who came from various places of the world!! From India to Tokyo, these people were impressive and so nice. We would play soccer or volleyball on the courts next to our dormitories and spend time hanging out. A lot of bonding moments and a lot of fun. I miss them lots.
A three-week program is tough in the sense that it’s longer than usual, but not long enough to continue making memories with friends. I came to realize this at the end of our program. It really hit me on the second to last day; I purposely kept avoiding the topic about how our program was coming to an end whenever my friends brought it up. I didn’t want to accept it, so it felt really surreal when we all started packing up to leave. I remember that on the last night, we all stood up until 3 am, spending our last moments together. We watched the sunrise (there was no sunrise), but all of us together one last time made it a nice memory.
And 3 hours later, we departed for our homes. I don’t know when I’ll see some of them again, but I promised that this program won’t be the last time we see each other.
I can’t wait to see what the future holds for all of us!
